The Forever Canadian citizens’ initiative to call a referendum on the question “Do you agree that Alberta should remain in Canada?” collected over 400,000 signatures and was approved and sent to the Speaker of the Legislature by Elections Alberta. The UCP government must call either a vote in the Legislature or a referendum on the question by law. The only way they can avoid this is by calling a general election. Albertans can and will stop this separation nonsense.
And the really funny part is that its now been taken up by the silly separatists (or what ever they are calling them self’s this week) just like the Forever Canadian group assumed they would as by law they can not have 2 referendums at the same time on the same issue. Its gold since the one that has been signed and approved does not say if Alberta leaves, so even if somehow (though dirty deeds no doubt) the referendum comes back with a “No” result that does not mean separation and there is a cool down time so hopefully this can be done and dusted.
Great play by the Forever Canadian people.
This has been obvious for some time. They use the exact same talking points and try to drive a wedge between different communities. The problem is Canada has a different national identity than the US does, so we have different view on the world. We recognize and cherish that we are a nation built by immigration. Yes, there will always be some racism, and it is being amplified by bad actors with an agenda, but we are also the most educated nation so we can mostly see through the rhetoric. I hope.
The rural conservatives of alberta are ignorant pig people ready to do violence against their city dwelling countrymen.
The seperation referendum will fail because of Calgary and Edmonton and when that happens the people who live in those cities better watch out.
? the only really stanch separatists I know are just as much from Calgary as areas around it. They are generally considered really, really dumb in rural Alberta. These are the same people who did anti UN parades and what not.
I don’t know why people have to assume that outside of a city people become wild uncivilized traitors.
Could have told you that during the freedumb kkklownvoy days. All of it funded by the USA.
How about the last election with the “republican party of alberta”?
You know the one that had less then $1000 in donations before the name change and trump getting in office that somehow ran a whole ass call center (they called me 2 to 3 times a fucking day)? The one that reported $191,194.50 from nothing somehow?
The reported amounts they got January 1, 2025 to September 30, 2025 vs What they got for all of 2024
Note they did not even make the deadline for the 2025 final Likely due to how much they got stomped in the one by-election they ran in. (even in Olds where they where claiming victory before the polling stations even closed).
Hah! Joke’s on them, we don’t ever listen to what Alberta has to say (and it’s their fault for always bitching at everything non-stop without ever making a point).
Ah yes, the 4 Ts of destiny
Oh wow what an unpredictable move. I’m so surprised at this development.
Wait, are you telling me Donald J. Trump, the very stable genius, is trying to hurt people (again)?
Excuse me Canada I’d like to suggest Washington, California, Oregon and Hawaii for your consideration. We are very left, we have decent economies and we love democracy and to be honest we’re being held hostage right now
I’d like to suggest Washington, California, Oregon and Hawaii for your consideration.
Y’know that 35-40 percent of your state’s population that voted for Trump every time they could?
Figure out how to leave them behind, then re-submit your request.
You guys have a facist problem too. What if we swap citizenship’s with facists
Hawai’i needs to be independent from colonial countries. Should be its own country. Fuck the US invaders. As much as I love Hawai’i as a Canadian. It should be independent.
Agreed but it will need military backing and an alliance at least if we Balkanize
I’d be really curious to see what would have to happen in Canada procedurally if another territory (like Minnesota or Hawai’i) asked to join us. The last territory to join us was Newfoundland and Labrador in 1949. Nunavut in 1999 doesn’t count because we just rededicated areas of the NWT that had already been part of Canada.
I wish we could. Being able to visit somewhere warm without having to leave Canada…
Better yet, those states form the independent nation of Cascadia. Include southeast Alaska which is politically progressive and culturally Cascadian, and cut out the MAGA trash parts like eastern Oregon. Sign trade deals with Canada and the EU, and defensive pacts with any other sane independent nations that break off from Trump’s America.
Lol decent economies? California alone has the fourth largest GDP in the world.
dont you mean russia uses krasnov to destabalize canada, after the failed attempt at using PP.
In which way do American billionaires profit from letting Russia own “their” president? Do they trust Putin to maintain American hegemonie?
Billionaires don’t have loyalty to their country. They could jump in their private jet to have lunch in Paris and then get back for dinner. They don’t have to worry about visa. They feel like citizens of the world.
Now they have putin offering deals making them even richer. The consequences didn’t bother them, as their money allows them to move to a safer place.
Not only they don’t see countries as their identities, they see countries as enemies, because all those regulations only impose restrictions and prevent then from being even richer.
It was a very bad idea to get those people anywhere close to the white house.
It’s their country. The power that comes from owning a military doesn’t exist for billionaires who flee to Russia.
Instead of paying 25% more taxes to their community, they just need to pay 1% direct kickback to dear leader.
Instead if a world where their employees can leave and find better jobs if treated like shit, they’ll have desperate serfs who will put up with whatever shit or sexual harassment gets thrown their way.
Instead if a world where their employees can leave and find better jobs if treated like shit, they’ll have desperate serfs who will put up with whatever shit or sexual harassment gets thrown their way.
From my vantage point, it sure looks like you didn’t need any help from Russia to achieve this. You created a system in which a handful of robotic wannabe human billionaires own the whole world, including your government, and everyone else is a serf. Putin didn’t create your oligarchy, you didn’t need any outside help to get there. It’s all American. And unless you acknowledge your responsibility for it, you won’t ever be able to change it to something resembling your much touted ideal of freedom.
How can the US maintain hegemony under those conditions?
What about the current capitalism system makes you think anyone at that level is capable of thinking about long term stability over short term benefits?
Bezos and Buffett seem to be long-term strategists. Amazon will lose if China and Alibaba become the hegemon. All of Buffett’s long-term investments will fail if Chinese companies rule the world.
Managers are judged by quarterly reports, billionaires are not.
What’s effectively the difference between Bezos having 100 billion dollars versus having just 8 or 9 billion?
To his lifestyle, what he is able to buy for himself - functionally nothing.
But what happens when the unemployment rate is 14% and interest rates are zero? That’s the magic formula for them, that’s where they can actually do whatever they want to whomever they want.
When Wayfair employees organized and staged a walkout to protest ICE that freaked out every CEO with lots of white collar employees. When female microsoft employees told the press that Bill Gates was a creepy sex pest to them that freaked out every CEO who saw his position as a way to leverage sex.
what he is able to buy for himself
To compete with Musk in building rockets.
There are always things that more money can buy.
walkout to protest ICE
That’s circular. ICE exists to introduce the new direction
freaked out every CEO
CEOs, but not billionaires. Those with billions can be as creepy as they want as Musk and his bought mothers show.
anyone at that level is capable of thinking about long term
that’s where they can actually do whatever they want
What would that be? Unless they all long for the most depraved sex and immense environmental destruction I don’t know what they couldn’t do.
They need to keep the army intact or America’s power will quickly dissolve. They need to keep people innovative or their army becomes useless with outdated weapons.
Owning a bunch of desperate humans is not fun.
There must be a reason to go along, but it must be something ‘good’. People do the most vile things to do something good.
From the outside looking in, conservatives in Canada seem to follow along with MAGA on a lot of culture war issues. However, I would think the separation would make it easier to see what’s going on in the US and give at least some of them pause. You’d have to be a special kind of person to see what’s happening and think “that is exactly what I want for my country”.
So Canadians of Lemmy, what do you think? Are conservative Albertans that far gone?
Conservatism lost a lot of steam in Canada when Trump was elected and his promises started taking shape. They realized it wasn’t just rhetoric , they were looking to break down democracy. Even our poor people get a decent education and understand that is a dark road to travel. I don’t think they’ll cede their sovereignty but who knows? Their premier is bought and paid for by the same people as Trump, but their constituents are Canadian and proud of it. They’ll fight a propaganda war, but I don’t think they’ll win many victories.
I’ve lived most of my life in Alberta, in both rural and urban centers.
It’s actually a pretty long story, politically, to understand how we went from Klien to Smith.
The short version is that the old conservatives stalled in direction after achieving the goal of eliminating all provincial debt.
They (the party) finally found a purpose, independently (and predating) Trump, of simply using Ottawa as a foil. For everything.
I genuinely believe Smith’s US podcasts likening PP to Trump were designed to HURT PP. A Conservative federal government would be a political disaster provincially. They have no plan. They have no playbook. They ONLY have the “stand up to liberal Ottawa” drum to bang, and they lose that if the liberals aren’t in power anymore.
It isn’t HARD to find Albertans that say they want to separate. But, they’re not anywhere NEAR common enough that a referendum could ever actually find a majority in favour. It’s not anywhere near as popular of an idea as Quebec separation in the 90s.
And OF the Albertans that want to separate, they’re envisioning a country of our own, not becoming a US state. And, as foolish as a notion that it is, I think a good number of supporters recognize the reality that they could end up getting annexed by the US.
Trump’s behaviour on the world stage overall hurts the proposition of Albertan separation. There is a reason pro-separation organizers are trying to distance themselves from Trump. It’s a liability to thier goals. If there was no other measure than that to evaluate what separatist Albertans about Trump statistically (always will be individuals otherwise), that should be enough to answer that.
Are conservative Albertans that far gone? Considering Albertan conservatives as a contiguous block is nonsense to start with.
The vast majority of Albertans would self identify as “conservative” (small “c”), and yet 1000 flipped votes in the last election would have put (ANOTHER) NDP government in place. A great number of Albertan small “c” conservatives don’t vote conservative provincially because they just refuse to acknowledge the overton window shift. Smith (or Kenny) isn’t offering anything but “blame Ottawa”. It’s BARELY enough to get a slim majority. It’s not meaningfully compelling on the grand scale.
Speaking of Overton window shifts, Carney and Harper from a policy perspective are pretty damned similar.
Will Alberta separate? No. Simply, no. Regardless of what interference Trump brings.
Thank you for the detailed response. I appreciate your contribution to the discussion.
I think our experiences of politics in our respective countries are pretty similar. I live in the only US state that borders Alberta. Our state politics are much less MAGA like than the national politics, there’s a certain amount of disdain for DC here no matter who is in charge there, but discourse has still been dominated by conservatives of late. They do have trouble getting all of the national party’s talking points to fully take root with many here though.
I don’t mean to pivot to discussing the US. I just brought it up as a way to say that I think I understand your description of the situation in Alberta. I hope you guys continue to have better luck keeping the crazy at bay than we have. I watched Carney’s speech in Davos and I thought he laid out a solid vision of a path forward for Canada. Do you think it was well received in Alberta?
The west is bound to begrudge the east because of lack of representation/voice. East coast politics rule both our countries even though we are both coast to coast. Population density factors in to it certainly but nearness to the body politic has a role there too.
It was well received, by AB standards. The provincial government didn’t bash it (and considering it’s thier ONLY tool, they understood it was well recieved and it was off-limits). A few old conservatives came out of the woodwork to say “put down your personal political views for a minute and watch the speech”, which was essentially an endorsement.
Stupidity is not contained solely to Alberta.
Tell me about it. Here we’ve got the Separatist party spouting on about how the United States would treat the culture more fairly. Having only a few months ago having the US trying to water down the language laws for trade.
Opportunistic cunts is what they are.
It’s not, but it sure seems to be pretty saturated there.
No, but this article is, so I’m not sure what your point is
That there are plenty of 51st state, Trump loving conservatives across this country, that we were only a few hundred votes here and there away from having a Trump-loving wannabe as prime minister, and that pointing the finger at one province just because their leader is a Nazi-loving fascist piece of shit is ignoring the larger problem in this country.
Fair enough, but like I said, I’m just trying to discuss this specific article which is only concerned with Alberta.
How many people with educational degrees vote conservative?
That might mean something.
you’d be surprised. I know a lot of highly educated people who have sunk into the “FUCK YOU I GOT MINE” mindset and support the cons because AXE THE TAX etc.
Fuck…the number of people who just eat that pathetically low IQ verb the noun thing up…
I really wish I could just verb them in the noun.
But if it rhymes it must be true!
Whoever smelt it dealt it.
Whoever said the rhyme did the crime.
These stood up to scrutiny in kindergarten so it must also apply to serious political policies in adulthood, no?
A percentage of them certainly are.
It’s worth noting that separatist conservative Albertans are a vocal minority in Alberta.
The only thing giving these individuals any credence right now is the fact that the current premier supports them… which has likely left her unelectable, so she’s trying to force a secession vote before she’s forced to call an election.
Excellent points
Don’t let your dreams be dreams.
It’s just the continuation of CambridgeAnalytica. The Robert Mercer funded russian op that brought us Brexit and Trump among other less successful fuckeries such as Calexit and Texit (plus some Europe shenanigans). Alberta is ripe!
Pretty sure the Trump regime had its heart set on Greenland, but I think some rigorous campaigning on the part of Alberta separatists and Smith over the holiday break was able to convince them there was a softer target.
That and the EU saying “don’t come here or we’ll shoot.” After all these are bullies, they feed on attacking those who they think can’t or won’t fight back.
Why?
Trump has promised to destroy Canada and/or annex it. This is a way for the USA to undermine Canada as a country. I imagine they’ll also be supporting Quebec separatists in secret, not because they have any real common cause but because they want to see Canada weakened and desperate.
(it’s also the classic Russian playbook - nudge here and there to cause chaos because chaos means a weak enemy. see Brexit. see “NATO is obsolete” etc)
It’s also the classic American playbook going as far back as the 19th century.
Right, but why?
Resources, Lebensraum, narcissism, envy, revenge, controlling the Arctic Ocean.
The rapist felon trump regime feels it will be easier to annex a destabilized country.
It’s the classic “balkanization” flavor of regime change. Cleave off Alberta and:
- Gain control of a massive oil reserve
- Humiliate and weaken Canada, which would likely break up further
